It's being likened to a never-ending waiting game, for New Zealanders hanging out for publicly-funded gender reassignment surgery.

New Zealand's only transgender surgeon has recently retired, and so far, there has been no replacement.

That only leaves one option - to get surgery overseas.

Lynda Whitehead is the president of transgender support agency Agender.

She acknowledges there's an argument that the surgery is non-essential.

"But you know, you need to talk to some of the 61 people that are on that list, and that list is growing and will continue to go. And I think they would have a contrary opinion to that."